This is who we are. The whole Bible is about how God worked with one family, Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christand our desire is to be a part of that family. With that understanding, we desire to be a place of growth. At FCC you should find the ability to grow in knowledge, in relationships and in your awareness of God's presence and expectations. We consider ourselves a family because of our commitment to one another and because all those who follow Jesus are family. Also, we use "family" rather than "community" because you can always just pick up and move out of community, but a family is a group of people that we should strive to stick with, so that they can help us, and we can help them. Finally, no one is expected to walk in here as a fully developed perfect person. We recognize that each person is on their personal journey toward God, and we invite you to make your journey a part of ours.
Our purpose is who we are and our values define what we do. Everything that we do is focused around these three things; authenticity, faithfulness and compassion. Here is how it all works out.
Authenticity: We are real people who worship a real God. We live this value out in two ways. First, in our Sunday morning services. While we spend a lot of time preparing for them, we want to make sure that we never "put on a show". "We recognize that the world we live in is both beautiful and broken ..." A great deal of care is put into making sure that our music reflects who we are and how we feel. Some of our songs will be fun and uplifting, while others will share our struggles with God and this world. In our teaching we will refuse to shy away from any subject that needs to be discussed. Occasionally we have even offered times for anyone present questions via text messenging to be answered immediately. We recognize that the world we live in is both beautiful and broken, and we desire to engage with all of it.
Faithfulness: Our understanding of faithfulness comes from the first time that the word is used in the Old Testament. In Exodus 17:12-13, Moses had just led God's people out of slavery in Egypt when they were attacked by the Amalekite army. While the battle raged on Moses was expected to keep his arms raised, and each time his arms would begin to fall, God's people would begin losing. For Moses to make it through the day he needed help from others, but finally they overcame their attackers. In that passage we read how Moses' hands "remained steady." In the original Hebrew, it would read that his hands were "faithful." Faith is not a belief system, it is an action based on a belief system. Faith is the image of sore muscles and long challenges. We see that lived out at FCC though studying together. We know that it takes others around us to stay strong, it takes facing challenges together to learn how to overcome, it takes knowing the Bible to remain steady. So when we say faithful, we mean that we will be consistently committed to studying together.
Compassion: We will serve one another and our world with the compassion of God. It is our responsibility to be the example of what God desires from His people. Basically, we are responsible for compassionately serving God by serving one another and the world around us. This starts here in our local church, then in our local community, then our country and then into the world. As we understand it, each Christian should strive to have a ministry not just within the church, but outside of the church as well. To that end, we partner with many local community ministries to live out God's heart. We get this from James 1:27, which reads,"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
Everything that we do is designed to help God's kingdom advance for generations to come. Our desire, therefore, is to help everyone become fully immersed in God's kingdom, not in our own personal empire. We want to see people recognize the power of God over the effectiveness of First Christian Church. We want to see people covered by God so that no matter where they look, they cannot help but to see Him. And we do it for the sake of the next generation of adults. A lot of effort goes into a quality children's program and a quality teen program, but we do it all to help them grow into maturity.